Fiction

I sit ugly, like a duck waiting to exhale, in a crowded jeepney on the way to somewhere that seems like nowhere on a morning like this. The old car is at the shop undergoing check-up after wading (Inay, sinking) through floods the...

I am Issa—the one and only. My parents named me Juan, which in English sounds like “one.” In Tagalog, “one” is isa, just like my name. Well, sort of—it’s Issa, pronounced, Ee-sah.     In my language, we don’t say “she” or “he,” we say...

Saturday. The afternoon’s stifling heat is rising in waves. Rogie crosses the road and pushes the gate of the compound of Dr Rieu’s residence. Rogie notices some village chiefs treating themselves with soft drinks. After the usual welcome by their candidate for town...

We began speaking Filipino when we learned we were both from the Philippines. I had gone to him for x-rays ordered by my primary care physician, who heard a murmur in my chest while listening with his stethoscope. The technician’s name was Andy, a...

A dragging sound of slippers, slow and heavy. It was my father’s footsteps, for he had never walked as if he were in a rush, even though he always was. Perhaps his weight dragged him slowly; perhaps it was the whole world on...